jbg
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Posts posted by jbg
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I basically agree. I would assume most Covid spread is asymptomatic. If you are vaccinated your chances of getting seriously ill are almost nil (gee with that line I could be a poet). People don't need lockdowns to keep them alive. As the Rascals said in their 1967 or 1968 hit "all the world over so easy to see, people everywhere just want to be free, listen to you listen that's the way it should be, peace in the valley people got to be free...."
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20 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:
The scary thing about this is how are we going to get people to make the changes needed to slow and reverse global warming. If we can't get people to stay home, wash their hands, socially distance etc., for three or four years, how are we going to get people to make the sacrifices needed to slow global warming over the next three or four centuries?
Or are we just going to toss our great grand children on the barbie?
The really scary thing is that people are willing to impose restrictions on others that they won't obey. Man is a social animal. Man also aspires to a better way of life. You cannot, simply put, force people to make sacrifices unless absolutely necessary. And not for hypothetical problems.
In the case of Covid, when the leaders were gallivanting around without fear, they were showing that the "rules were for thee, and not for me." Ditto, with private plane travel to global warming confabs.
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On 9/15/2018 at 6:39 PM, Zeitgeist said:
Technology can help, especially in terms of clean energy sources. I'd be careful messing with the atmosphere by pumping chemicals into it due to unintended consequences. The latest gambit, spraying salt into the atmosphere to lighten clouds and reflect light back into space could result in the salination of freshwater and the desertification of arable lands. We have to be careful.
Back in the 1970's they wanted to blacken Arctic ice to fight cooling.
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On 5/8/2018 at 7:26 PM, Hudson Jones said:
Translation: People who have lived there for centuries and who had their land stolen from them are just a myth and don't deserve to have a state there, but European settlers who moved to that land, are magically the eternal owners of the land and deserve to have a state of their own.
The chutzpah to suggest such a narrative is beyond ridiculous.
By your logic everyone should go back to the Great Rift Valley.
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41 minutes ago, CITIZEN_2015 said:
As I said before:
You have to live in other countries to know what a not peaceful end to protest is really. And then begin to appreciate what it is to live in a democracy before trying to destroy that democracy.
The truckers' demonstration started over the vaccination issue. I happen to be pro-vaxx. It later embraced lockdowns and masking. I am with the truckers on lockdowns and masking. To me, vaccinations are 30 minute affairs, three times over a five or six month period. I'm fine with that. I'm not fine over continuing dictatorial powers and restrictions.
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49 minutes ago, blackbird said:
Notice here in God's inspired word that God has ordained rulers to enforce law and order. The rulers determine the laws and their enforcement, not the ruled. The responsibility of the ruled is to obey the laws. Those who refuse are rebelling against the God-ordained authorities and risk the authorities coming down on them with force in whatever way the authority deem appropriate. It becomes especially difficult when you have a large number of protesters who have convinced themselves they are on the right side of the law or an issue. These verses should serve as a warning to those who think they are above the law of the land. Tragically the Bible was taken out of public schools and many have imbibed the idea that individual citizens are final judge of what is right or wrong. Morality has become a relative thing based on whatever seems popular.
Nobody, however, made these rules G-d. As Myata said in Post 143 (link):
QuoteGovernments should never be left alone, to take care of themselves. This is that will happen, again and again and over, when governments get used to running themselves.
The governments should be made to remember that they work for us. We don't work for them. The Covid emergency seems to have given government leaders the world around the belief that they could invoke the talisman "Covid" and order everyone around.
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On 1/26/2022 at 10:00 PM, Queenmandy85 said:
In the last few years, we have witnessed a delamination of civil order. From the election of President Trump to the growth of populist politicians in Eastern Europe, from the January 6th events in Washington DC to the current truck convoy in Canada, vaccine resistance and climate skeptics. These are all symptoms of a deeper problem. A segment of the world's population are angry and they feel no one is listening. My question is what is the real source ot this anger. I don't know, but if we are to reverse the trend of unfocused anger and mistrust, we need to find out what it is.
Any suggestions?
The movie and then the Broadway show Network featured the line "I'm mad as h**l and I'm not going to take it any more. I think people are tired of lockdowns and restrictions.
I don't know if anyone has made this parallel, but there on May 23, 2020 there were riots in Lansing, Michigan. Maybe this is just coincidence but that was when the dam broke and phased reopenings of life were announced for many "blue" states (I know in Canada "blue" is color-coded to Conservative). I do not expect the Ottawa government to visibly cave, but I predict the restrictions will rapidly fall. People have a limited tolerance for boring, depressing life in a bubble.
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Now I am reading The Klondike Fever: The Life and Death of the Last Great Gold Rush by Pierre Berton. To be continued when I finish.
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9 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:
Yup, Canada is becoming Cuba. Young people won’t be able to buy homes. They’ll rent little apartments, work from home or as essential workers under public safety measures, have curtailed freedoms, and live a subsistence lifestyle. Nowhere to take your complaints.
I believe that the provincial and federal governments will not explicitly cave to the trucker's demands. I suspect that the dam will break towards a return to normalcy. This is not confined to the far-right. People don't like living this way.
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On 8/29/2021 at 10:34 AM, RedDog said:
I see no exit strategy. The spin-off variants are worse than the original. Meanwhile, social distancing, masks and general appropriate conduct is being ignored.
I don't see anything but theater in those approaches.
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I recently finished reading Second Serve by Renee Richards and John Ames.
I thought this book would give me some good tennis tips, such as how to improve my second serve. Only trouble is that Renee Richards, formerly Dick Raskind is a "leftie." Only kidding. I knew it wasn't a sports-coaching book though she did coach Martina Navratilova.
I found this book in my beloved and late father-in-law's library. My father-in-law was his classmate and tennis-teammate at Yale, and close lifelong friend. Dr. Richards has other deep and abiding ties to my family. The book is definitely "R" if not "X" rated. Reading parts of the book is tinged with the fascination of driving past a multi-car pileup. That being said, the only way the book could make its point was to be brutally straightforward.
Dr. Richards describes rather graphically her adventures with gender confusion, which were not aided by certain people in her family. Dick Raskind decided a fair amount of time that he would be best served by changing genders. He had gone through years of fruitless therapy, with doctors who basically tried to convince him to, in short form, forget about his problems. Despite those problems, he had risen to great accomplishments in both the medical and athletic fields as a male.
Forgetting about a deep-seated confusion, apparently, is easier said than done. Though the book ends in 1981 (she continues to practice medicine at age 87), about six years after the gender-changing surgery, the book gives tantalizing hints of a better, more satisfying future. This book is definitely worth reading. -
On 8/19/2021 at 12:47 PM, CITIZEN_2015 said:
Covid pandemic is expected to get a lot worse in the fall and winter but NO MORE LOCKDOWNS OR WILL BE LARGELY IGNORED AND DISOBEYED. This is to serve a warning to the governments at various levels. Canadians are fed up with lockdowns, melt down economy, loss of jobs and home imprisonment. Over 80% are vaccinated. The next pandemic will be mainly among unvaccinated people where most of hospitalizations and deaths will be but that was their choice. We will refuse to pay the price for their choice and will disobey any government trying To impose lockdowns in future.
https://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-reports-more-than-500-new-cases-of-covid-19-once-again-1.5553301
"We are preparing aggressively for the fall," Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore said during a press conference earlier this week. "I am sorry to say, I think it's going to be a difficult fall and winter."
About 85 per cent of the cases (456) occurred in individuals who were either not fully vaccinated or for whom their vaccination status was unknown while the remaining cases (75) were in fully vaccinated individuals.
Of the 176 people in hospital outside of the ICU, only 13 are fully vaccinated.
That's what would happen in the U.S. but in Canada?
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On 12/9/2020 at 3:04 PM, oops said:
https://www.britannica.com/science/virus
Virus, infectious agent of small size and simple composition that can multiply only in living cells of animals, plants, or bacteria. The name is from a Latin word meaning “slimy liquid” or “poison.”
It is not the virus that closed our hospitals while people were dying on waiting lists, it was not the virus that spent $300 billion paying people to not contribute to our economy while adding to the debt that will rob health care of future funding. It was elected leaders who did that. There is some commonality between the two though, so I can see where you went wrong.
Politician love to virtue-signal with someone else's money.
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On 8/12/2020 at 11:42 PM, August1991 said:
Why did Canada not find a way to avoid/stop the US civil war in 1861?
1) Canada had "responsible government" and not dominion status. That would wait until July 1, 1867; and
2) One of the reasons Britain was eager to declare Canada independent was the willingness of Canadian companies to trade with a renegade republic, the Confederacy.
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I'll start. Even though I'm a "Yank" I read my share of "Canadian content."I just finished reading the book, The Great Lone Land, by William Francis Butler, was a thrill to read. I was led to this book by The Impossible Railway: The Building of the Canadian Pacific, by Pierre Berton. The Burton book relied extensively on The Great Loan Land's description of pre-railroad conditions. Or, to quote Gordon Lightfoot, "There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run, when the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun, Long before the white man and long before the wheel, when the green dark forest was too silent to be real." This book describes a world that is almost unreal; deeply isolated, with bone-warping cold and only recently teaming with bison.
The Great Lone Land strikes me as a Canadian Journal of Lewis and Clark. Some of the material echoes that found in 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. In particular, the author details the depredations of the smallpox virus on First Nations/Native Americans.
The author, William Francis Butler, was commissioned by William McDougall, Lieutenant Governor of the Northwest Territories (then covering most of Canada west of Ontario except for a much smaller province of Manitoba) to: "1) report upon the whole question of the existing state of affairs in that territory, and to state your views on what may be necessary to be done in the interest of peace and order; 2)ascertain, as far as you can, in what places and among what tribes of Indians, and what settlements of whites, the small-pox is now prevailing, including the extent of its ravages; 3) ascertain, as far as in your power, the number of Indians on the line between Red River and the Rocky Mountains; the different nations and tribes into which they are divided and the particular locality inhabited, and the language spoken, and also the names of the principal chiefs of each tribe." (paraphrased).
This book was a tale of his fascinating journey, from October 1870 to February or March 1871, through what Butler called "The Great Lone Land." The journey started at Fort Garry, near modern Winnipeg, thence west to modern Edmonton, southwest to Rocky Mountain House, then returning to the Red River area of Winnipeg. During his journey he intercoursed with the Metis (he called them "half-breeds"), First Nations (called "Indians" at the time) and white settlers and members of the military. The Appendix is essential reading. It contains McDougall's original orders, and the report Butler filed about two months after his journey.
Books such as these are rare, and hard to get. I will email PDF's of the book to anyone who requests and supplies an email address, since the book is no longer under copyright. My edition of the book goes to 351 pages, 384 with the appendix.
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On 3/8/2020 at 3:04 AM, August1991 said:
Uh, he wasn't commissioned.
In Canada, in Quebec - indeed America - people write such songs because they are free to do this:
It's my understanding that in fact the educational TV service ordered-up the song.
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On 3/5/2020 at 10:28 PM, August1991 said:
Palm hit.
Gordon Lightfoot did not write this song for a video.
The CBC, once upon a time, created content.
For what was Gordon Lightfoot commissioned to write this song?
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On 3/2/2020 at 5:31 PM, Argus said:
Notice how the CBC shows pictures of poor children, but no pictures of angry men throwing things? As always, the media are the best allies dictators like Erdogan have in the West.
I wish these compassionate bleeding hearts were giving their own money.
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On 3/2/2020 at 10:03 PM, Dougie93 said:
As an American, I am an armed individual sovereign charged with defending the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America, by force of arms as necessary.
In addition, I have undertaken obligations to the British Crown in North America, of my own free will, as is my American prerogative.
Don't you realize that our Constitution bans grants of titles of nobility?
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11 hours ago, August1991 said:
The CBC made it into a TV series:
William Hutt was a good gin-drinking Macdonald.
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PS. This series should be available for the world to see, without paywall. Heck, I paid for it years ago.
One of my favorite songs, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, I believe was written for this show:
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On 3/2/2020 at 10:03 PM, Dougie93 said:
As an American, I am an armed individual sovereign charged with defending the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America, by force of arms as necessary.
In addition, I have undertaken obligations to the British Crown in North America, of my own free will, as is my American prerogative.
17 hours ago, cougar said:We can see how it works with 300 million Americans like you, where every now and then someone blows a fuse resulting in a mass shooting.
Thing is I doubt that many people like Dougie93 are among those that "blow a fuse resulting in a mass shooting." I think they have real lives, real families, real agendas in life.
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1 hour ago, eyeball said:
Well....there was a reason for that and I guess a non-primitive society that persists acting primitively is taking it's chances in today's world.
Echoing Chretien's views. And by the way I finished the book on the train riding into NYC today.
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On 3/1/2020 at 4:46 PM, Argus said:
Or so says a new poll. Apparently 69% of Canadians feel we're 'broken' and not heading in the right direction. The poll was mainly about indigenous issues, but I would argue we're broken in many other ways, too.
Even though I am a Yank who knows nothing about Canada I feel a need to weigh in. Canada has always been a disparate country, strung together first by a railroad, and then by a few highways. It has always had a liquidity problem. Notwithstanding the above, it has become an amazing country, punching far above its weight. Canada has problems, as do all countries. Its problems are not nearly as bad as most countries. It remains a good place to live. Broken, hardly.
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1 hour ago, eyeball said:
That might have been a foregone conclusion in the past but nowadays so-called primitive societies are figuring out how to use the legal systems of so-called advanced societies meaning the outcome is still a moving target. To everyone's betterment.
The only way out for advanced societies is to go back to being primitive and doing things the olde-fashioned way. Tragic but true.
The better approach would be for the non-primitive societies to be more self-confident and less self-destructive. There is no reason to let hijackers, for example, use an airplane they couldn't have built to destroy buildings they couldn't have built.
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Gordon Lightfoot - November 17, 1938 to May 1, 2023 -
in Arts and Culture
Posted
Gordon Lightfoot - November 17, 1938 to May 1, 2023 -
Rest in peace. One of the most talented singer-songwriters that ever walked the face of the earth, picked up a guitar or sat down at the piano. With a breathtaking range of geography of his songs, from Canadian Railroad Trilogy to Christian Island to Seven Island Suite to Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, his songs range "all the way to Biscayne Bay," over the Canada and the U.S. Gordon Lightfoot personified Canada. He lived, sang and breathed the land, but also had his U.S. life. I guess he had Plans of His Own:
[MEDIA=youtube]GANfVbHOutw[/MEDIA]
His lyrics show his frightening intelligence. Some of them personify values and friendship and love, even if like all people he could not always live those values. At least he tried and, unlike many other musicians of that era did clean himself up.
May you, to quote Christian Island, always be "sailing on a summer wind, with whiskers on your chin."